More than 2,200 GP practices had patients who had not been invited for screening due to an IT error related to incomplete registrations, a letter seen by Pulse has confirmed.
A review by NHS England had found 5,261 people across the country had not been contacted to participate in one or more NHS screening programmes.
The issue came to light after NHS England were contacted by a small number of people in the summer of 2024 due for screening who had not received an invite.
Public health and prevention minister Ashley Dalton told Parliament in a statement last week that the incomplete registrations meant the details were not passed to NHS screening systems.
Records indicate that up to 10 patients have been diagnosed with a relevant cancer and were not invited for certain screening.
Around 10 people who were not invited for screening ‘may have died from a relevant cancer’, she added.
The review into the issue found that GP registrations returned to some GP practices by Primary Care Support England (PCSE) for further information or review had not been completed or GP practices had not sent a GP links message to the Primary Care Registration Management System, the letter said.
Affected patients were spread across 2,253 practices and have already been contacted by NHS England to explain the issue and what will happen next.
The error had affected abdominal aortic aneurysm, cervical, breast and bowel cancer screening programmes.
But ‘it remains the responsibility of the GP practice’ to ensure that any ‘in-flight’ registrations are completed and future registration information requests from PCSE are responded to quickly, the letter continued (see box).
It asked ICB leaders to contact the GP practices affected and set out a series of actions for them to take, stating that:
- GP practices with affected patients should respond to any follow-up queries their patients may have.
- Practices should advise administration staff of this issue as they may receive direct queries from affected patients.
- Every effort should be made to support catch-up screening opportunities. For example, women who have not been invited for cervical screening have been advised to contact their GP practice to make an appointment as soon as possible. Please ensure that all women who contact you are offered a timely appointment, including patients who are now above the eligible screening age who have been advised they are able to access a cervical screen if they wish to do so.
- GP practices must ensure that any incomplete registrations are completed in line with the process and future registration information requests from PCSE are responded to quickly and registrations resubmitted through the practice’s clinical system.
NHS England said it had also put in ‘exceptional measures’ to ensure that those who remain incomplete are added to NHS screening IT systems as quickly as possible, allowing timely invitations to screening.
Earlier this week BMA GP committee deputy chair Dr David Wrigley said that the union is working with the Department of Health and Social Care and GP practices to ‘rectify current problems’ while pushing for ‘a more robust solution’ in the longer term.
He said: ‘My sympathies go out to the thousands of patients receiving this distressing news today. We’re working closely with the Department of Health, NHS England and Primary Care Support England to make sure these issues do not happen again and ensure the national screening programme recalls work as expected.
‘GP practices should make sure they monitor patient registrations more closely than ever so that, going forward, a patient’s details will transfer properly to the NHS screening IT system.’
How the issue occurred
The patients affected have been identified due to incomplete GP registrations. At the time of registration, the following steps should occur:
- The GP practice sends a message to the Patient Demographic Service (PDS) via a patient lookup, initiating the registration process. The registration is logged but remains ‘in-flight’ until PDS receives an approved GP links message from Primary Care Registration Management system (PCRM).
- The GP practice sends a GP links message to PCRM to complete the patient’s registration.
- There are two possible outcomes:
- a) the registration is approved automatically by PCRM or by Primary Care Support England (PCSE) processing the registration. This generates an approval message to PDS, or
- b) PCSE rejects the application and provides a reason for rejection to the GP practice for remediation and resubmission.
- Step 3a must be completed for the registration to be finalised.
If step 2 is not completed, the patient’s registration remains ‘in-flight’. Similarly, if step 3b occurs and the GP practice does not address the rejection and resubmit the application, the registration will remain incomplete.
Incomplete (‘in-flight’) registrations do not flow through to NHS screening programme IT systems, as the screening programmes require approved registrations before invitations can be issued. Other NHS England programmes only require step 1 (PDS registration) to be completed, so are not impacted by this issue.
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